Illustrator Swayam Parekh’s newest picture/comic book, ‘Greenhouse,’ delves into the tedious journey of self-discovery. Aimed at young readers or anyone who loves abstract fantasy, the book is wordless with 44 pages of illustrations rendered in graphite and coloured pencil.
The story sees a girl and her trusted dragon flying to various lands, on a mission to recover a set of keys she once had but has now lost. These keys open the door to a house that calls to the protagonist and she must enter it. On their adventures, they meet a zany cast of characters that may or may not be helpful, and ultimately, they make their way back to unlock the door and let what lies in the house reveal itself.
Through her main characters, Swayam explores internal conflict. She says, ‘I wanted to create a book for a younger audience which talks about our relationship with our inner selves. ‘Greenhouse’ is about finding your way back after feeling disconnected from yourself. The idea of having to rebuild without clarity or closure is what inspired the concept for the book. It is loosely based on my own experiences that I wanted to talk about in a light and slightly absurd way, using fantasy as a tool. I dissociated from myself after going through a wave of unanticipated constant change and eventually I had to rebuild that lost connection from scratch.’
Apart from its charming art style and moving story, Greenhouse is also notable thanks to being practically wordless. Swayam settled on this approach because the story is simple yet dense and might have been slowed down or unfocused by including dialogue. "I wanted the reader to experience the book and think about it, what it meant in their context, and draw their own conclusions from it," she reveals. "Adding words would have interrupted the point of the story and distracted from the flow of experiencing it."
Explaining the events, characters and locations without words proved to be the biggest challenge while making Greenhouse, but Swayam was content to trust not only the process but the readers as well. "I think at some point I accepted that parts of the story would be 'open to interpretation', and that's okay; it would add another dimension to the narrative," she concludes.
Born in Bombay, Swayam’s work in the book is inspired by the natural vegetation of the city and her travels within the country. She began to develop her unique drawing style after moving to New York for an MFA in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts. Looking back now, it is evident to her how the comics she grew up reading like Amar Chitra Katha, Tintin and Calvin and Hobbes have informed her work.
When asked about what the turning point that pushed her to go abroad and explore her artistic practice was, she says, ‘Before moving to New York, I worked for Louis Vuitton Mumbai as theirin-house artist. I was the first person in the country to have this job. I painted artwork that clients requested on luxury trunks, along with drawing up plans for custom trunks to be built in France. The job was wonderful and opened many doors for me; I gained a vast amount of technical knowledge and corporate experience. However, I felt it limited my creativity to what was requested of me, and I did not know how I could grow as an artist. Although I loved the job, leaving it to pursue further education in a foreign country with only uncertainty ahead of me was incredibly hard. But, it was what I needed to find my own voice as an artist.’
Through her work, Swayam aims to combine the language of narrative illustration in the format of comics. As she uses her own experiences, her stories feel deeply personal along with being evocative and visually compelling. She largely uses traditional materials as it makes her feel closer to the work she creates, bonding her to it, and it is the way she uses these materials that makes her stand out. Along with her own stories, she has worked to create art for comic writers, painted murals, made picture books for children, and exhibited work from these books at cultural centers.
Original art from ‘Greenhouse’ has been displayed at the SVA Chelsea Gallery in Manhattan and is currently installed at Mi Centro cultural center in Brooklyn as part of their Artist in Residence programme that Swayam is a part of.
